Suggestion please

I disagree and think the ability to see competitive quotes is one of the more valuable features of the Zillow marketplace.  It allows us to see the "bait and switch" offers and let's up see if our real quotes are better/worse than the market. 

I've quoted two offers so far and seeing the other offer has been interesting.  One prospect wanted an I/O 30 year fixed rate and the other lender quoted an amortized "low-ball" rate.  I prefaced my offer with an explanation of the I/O price add-ons common in the market and contrasted amortized v. I/O pricing.  We'll see if it makes a difference.

The biggest problem I see is carelessness. I don't think most are overtly using bait and switch tactics, I believe it's a case of not reading the entire loan request. I see a lot of conforming quotes on jumbos and owner occ quotes on inventment properties. This complicates things because the public already believes that the new conforming jumbos should be or are indeed priced as a loan under 417k.

Being able to see what has already been posted is a good thing, I immediately know if I can be competetive or if I should pass. If I see a rate that is just not possible, I know to move on because it's going to be an uphill battle no matter what you do or say from that point on. It's unfortunate for the borrower, but it's hard to unring that bell. There are a lot of us with zero overhead and no commission splits, so taking a small .5% origination fee and a par rate is not an issue. The system would not work well if you could not legitimately view and choose the battles you can win.

sjbaxter: I agree with you. There whole idea is transparency, if someone is quoting much lower I want to see why and if they have an explination.

Zillow: What about if you highlight in BOLD and RED if it's jumbo, super jumbo, stated income, self employed, anything that is out of the "norm". I believe that people are just quoting a vanilla slam dunk 30yr fixed and not looking at the whole scenario. Also, the County if which the property is in would be helpful for conforming pourposes.

good ideas on the highlighting in bold and red Darren

I second the highlighting, would add CASH OUT to the highlight list. We absolutely need the county for the new conforming jumbo loans.

Purely as a technical note, I knw the new areas are not specifically by County. Are there any areas wher part of a county is in an area and part isn't?

Tom O'Leary

Tom... Yes you are correct, Zillow knows everything though ;). You know that part of Salinas in is Santa Cruz, but the majority is in Monterey Co. I'm sure that zip codes go to the border of some counties.

It's not easy in the title business when you have a piece of property in 2 counties, typically the house will be on one and then some land be in another. They get taxes from 2 different county tax collectors.